The Dragon Born
A short story by Z.D.
Gladstone*
Come in, girl, come in—enter
without fear, for I will not harm you.
Night begins to shroud the world; you would do well to leave your
hesitation on the doorstep, and draw close to the fire on my hearth.
You have come a long
way. No, I do not mean a long way from
your walled city, squatting in the lake…you have come a long way in mind and spirit
to brave the unknown as you have done.
Few of the men in your fortress capitol dare to brave the forest without
paths. And you are a girl too old be a child
and too young to be a woman! For a girl to make the journey here…you shame
their cowardice. But even fear of the
dark will not keep them from pursing you.
Before the moon rises they will find you here, hiding in the Madman’s
home, fleeing like a criminal from a fate you suppose will be worse than the hangman’s
rope.
No, you cannot take sanctuary
here; they will find you soon, take you back within the walls of the island
city. And no, I will not try and stop
them. But I can pass the time in a way that
just may soothe your fears. There is a
story you should know, girl, a story that only I can tell. They say “the blade of truth has no hilt, but
it can cut any bond.” They have always called me mad. Since you came to me, you
must have realized that "madness" and "wisdom" are often
one and the same.
Mine is an old story, one
that you will find in some ways familiar. It is a story about Coril the Brave,
the man who, years ago, founded the city-fortress in which you have lived. They
will tell you it has stood for a hundred years. They are wrong—ignorant folk
can't count past their fingers. Not even
ninety years have passed since the first stone blocks were laid. I should know,
for I was there. A wee babe only, but I was there.
I can also tell you that
Coril the Brave is hardly a fitting name. Coril the Coward, Coril the Betrayer,
these are far more suiting for your “hero founder.” Ah, but now, girl, you do
not understand—you and your fellows within the city have been weaned on stories
of Coril’s greatness. I can see on your face the tales of your upbringing
rising to defend your cities favorite.
Yet after my tale is finished, girl…then, I will let you decide what
title best fits the legendary Coril.
In the lands far to the east
of here, Coril once lived as a prince among men--this you have been told and
yes, this much is true. In his kingdom it was tradition for the prince to marry
a woman of foreign birth, to strengthen the kingdom’s status abroad. A lady was brought by emissaries from a land
so far distant, girl, that you could not walk there in a dozen turning of the
seasons. This chosen bride was a woman of a people Coril had never before
seen. Her hair shone black as onyx, and
her eyes were brighter than the green fields in summer. She was Dragon Born,
and among her people she was destined to be queen.
I see you, girl, your teeth
scraping at your lip, as though you were haunted by some word of mine. Dragon
Born? No, not born of a dragon, born of woman still. Born with eyes the green
of dragon scales and clutching in her infant hands what could only be the shell
of a dragon's egg. Such a child is born every hundred years. They say such
children are not made by the seed of a man, but by the woman dreaming of
dragons mating in flight. Merely the dream of a dragon is powerful enough to
quicken her womb. I know not if this is true, but it was my mother’s legacy,
for she was one such child: one of a century. And she was wed to Coril.
Yet Coril was a man of his people,
a shallow man, a man whose eyes were trained by small-mindedness to see beauty
only in what he found familiar. His
brown eyes and yellow hair were that of all his countrymen. His wife had hair
like onyx and eyes the like of which none had seen before; she caused fear to
twist his heart, fear of that which he did not understand, fear of the unknown
and uncontrolled. But men of his kind cannot feel fear—not that they will ever
admit. He turned his fear to loathing and scorn. They say he raped her before
riding off on that hunting trip, but if so, he was only one of many. All the soldiers of his army took their turn
with her that day. This was how Coril the Brave treated his wife.
Nine months later, he still
had not returned to the palace; he had that luxury for he was not yet king.
Parties and hunts, visits and celebrations had kept Coril busy away from his
father’s castle. But the desperate
people of his city found him anyway, having been searching for him for many a
week. They brought with them Coril's green eyed wife, heavy with child, ripe
with hatred, and still suffering the agony of the wounds of rape. These
servants had dared not leave her at the castle, where she had cursed the king
and tormented the queen until they could find no rest. The command had been to take the pregnant
princess to their son, that he might be responsible for his wife.
No sooner than she was
brought before her husband, my mother’s water broke. Fascinated, terrified, all
stood round to watch as the unassisted woman screamed from the searing pain of
childbirth, cursing. She cursed them all, the women who were too cowardly to
help her, the men who had used her flesh like beasts, and most of all her hated
husband – your famed Coril – for his cruelty and dishonor.
If they had been wise, they
would have heeded her, tended to her needs and pain—but men of this kind do not
understand magic. If they heard a strange ringing in her screams, they did not
compare them to a dragon's song. Her agony called forth her other kin from
their hiding places in the mountains. The place soon swarmed with dragons.
It is difficult for one
dragon to be driven off or killed, even by warriors with armor and
shields. That day, my mother’s screams
summoned scores of dragons down upon Coril. What was once a kingdom was soon
reduced to bare handfuls of people, for teeth and claws and fire of vengeance
tore into the wicked and poured their blood upon the ground. It was a massacre,
my mother's curse come to life even as she screamed it.
The beasts of fire might have
destroyed everyone but for a sound that pierced the air and silenced their
roars of fury; the wail of an infant newly born gave the dragons pause. As
though nothing had happened, they turned and flew away, leaving Coril and a few
of his men and women still alive.
To this day I wish I had been
born dead and silent, that the dragons would have finished their task.
For it was my cry that made
them leave. It was my birth that took the last of my ailing mother's strength.
Before she died, she struggled to lift me in her arms and kiss me; I was the
product of all her anguish, but I had an innocent soul, and I had her love. I
know this, for she told me just before she died. I was born with my eyes open.
I remember.
My mother’s curse did not end
with her death. They say that the stars in the sky are the beating hearts of
every dragon that has died since time began. When my mother died that day, she
joined them bright in eternity. Her
spirit told the twinkling souls of her dragon kin the sad story of her death.
In anger and in grief, the stars began to shed tears of rage, and stones fell
from the night sky in a fury of fire, smashing the mighty city of Coril's
father until it was only broken stones and dust. The king was dead. The kingdom
destroyed. Only Coril remained.
Coril gathered to him the few
remaining people of his kingdom, and they began to travel west. Distance, he
believed, would shed the curse. For days they traveled, and they took me with
them, a babe in arms. I might have been Coril's heir, it is possible, but that
was not why I was brought. They took me for I was the only one living that my
mother had not cursed. Her blessing was upon me, and they hoped it would stave
off further disaster. I had banished the dragons with my cry; perhaps the beasts
would not pursue if I were with them.
Along the journey, Coril met
other tribes of people, travelers and warriors, who spoke of a land far to the
west where dragons had never been seen. Some joined Coril's pack. One was the
daughter of a chieftain, a woman with brown eyes and yellow hair of great
beauty who was famed as well for luck. Coril wed her - your stories say for
love, but I say for greed, for he wanted her luck to be his legacy - and she
led the way to the west until they found this place. This land of lakes and
islands was green and empty of people and dragons alike. Dragons are beings of fire—perhaps they
believed the water would ward them away.
Coril’s men then built the foundations for the fortress city in which
you live.
All this I remember, for my
mother was the daughter of dragons, and some of their blood runs thin through
my veins. I remember, too, when the first dragon found Coril and his followers,
still reeking of my mother's curse.
The distance was too great
for many dragons to travel. It is only every two or three years when one passes
that they smell the curse left by my mother, and go to fulfill their lust for
blood. Coril was a coward, and had no desire to try and fight a dragon again.
He was certain he would fail for my mother's curse was strongest on him. But if
another man led a fight against a dragon and won, might he not be made leader
in Coril's stead? And so Coril chose a maiden - the choicest flesh among his
people - to be a sacrifice to the dragon, filling its stomach and sending it
off to sleep, leaving the fortress city in peace to continue building. Thus began the tradition of the Dragon
Sacrifice: whenever a dragon appears, a maiden is bound outside the city walls,
to satisfy its hunger.
They say the city walls have
never felt dragon fire, and it is true; the recurring sacrifice keeps the
beasts at bay, but it also fuels my mother's curse, for evil cannot be undone
with evil. I left that hateful city as soon as I was of age. For many long
years, my home has been here in the forests, where I can watch and wait. I
await my chance to finish my mother's curse, for though Coril is long dead and
gone, his seed still lives. The laws of his rule perpetuate his crimes. The
innocent still suffer at the hands of the powerful. I have been waiting for a
time when the next Dragon Born might call the dragons to finish what she
started.
And so you see, girl, I
cannot help you—you, with your crow-black hair and your dragon scale eyes. Wise
though I am with age, and powerful though I am with ancestry, I want you there on the Dragon's Pole,
bound and waiting the beasts' arrival. I want
you out there, filled with fear and hate. They chose you because they fear
and hate you, fear and hate what is different, and they cannot understand. You
are not like them with their brown eyes and their yellow hair. That is why they chose you to appease the dragon’s
hunger, why you will be left for the dragon to consume. But you can revisit that hatred upon them.
When they leave you to die, do not be afraid. When the dragon’s teeth come
close to your face, let lose your scream. Your brothers will come on wings of
fire—our kin will come avenge you.
*All blog content is the sole creative and intellectual property of Z.D. Gladstone, unless otherwise noted--and very open to constructive feedback!